It’s why some have hourly rates and others offer rooms months at a time.

It was for nothing tawdry nor even as a temporary home that Canmore singer-songwriter checked into the Temperance Hotel. It was for inspiration, for self-discovery, for comfort, for balance, for stability, and, most notably, for the concept for her latest collection of sweet, honey-suckled country-folk songs.

“As somebody who is sensitive, you feel things a lot and sometimes it’s hard to keep balance in the middle of all of these crazy emotions and chaos and things you have no control over,” says the veteran solo musician and member of Alberta super trio The Fates.

“It’s finding that place where you know you can be OK no matter what happens.”

It seemed perfect, then, that Reid would use the entire idea of a temperance hotel — inns where liquor was prohibited and which were popularized during the temperance movement of the mid-1800s, but are still present most notably in Australia — to drive the songs she was writing for what would be her first album in almost a decade.

The history buff had come across the term while poring through books about area ghost towns and was struck by the way the two words seem to collide more and more these days.

“The idea of a Temperance Hotel really intrigued me, because it seems like a bit of a dichotomy. The ‘temperance’ idea is very stern and very ‘you can’t do this’ and the idea of a hotel is very open and crazy things happen in hotels,” she says.

“So what is that balance?”

In other words, it’s not an actual place, she says, it’s a state of mind.

And over the course of the album’s 12, naturally pretty, engaging and articulate tracks Reid explores the theme, with the help of a sparse but impressive collection of fellow musicians, including fellow Fate Lin Elder and multi-instrumentalist Colin Linden who also produced the record and lent to it one of his own creations Girl At the Window.

Long a fan of the acclaimed producer, performer and member of Blackie and the Rodeo Kings and having previously worked with him on The Fates’ release Therapy, she reached out to Linden knowing that he had the perfect touch to help her bring each of the rooms and its inhabitants to life, which he did by letting the songs breathe and Reid’s words come to life.

“He was just so bang on with the space I was looking for and he really understood that,” she says.

“I’m so pleased with the way it sounds and that relationship, musically, what happened there, is really awesome. . . . He was very into it and I, ultimately, had to step out of my little box and ask him. I was a little nervous. But we hit it off so well and I just felt so comfortable in his presence.”

It helped that she was in a space she was also comfortable in and one that was an actual hotel. Not one of temperance mind you — although there were several in the province in the early 1900s — but one that’s actually a fairly active and sometimes raucous hub where she lives, the Canmore Hotel.

It’s the place, Reid says, that she convened every Wednesday to work on writing the material. And when it came time to finally pick a space to record the album, she pitched it to Linden, who, while originally suggesting Nashville, jumped at the opportunity to use the historical structure’s character to enhance the material.

“It’s as much a part as Colin,” Reid says of the hotel, which was filled with rare, retro recording gear supplied by Calgary company Audities Foundation.

“I knew I wanted it very simple and I wanted to capture the sonics of a place that’s seasoned with so much. So it just was very logical that I would record it in a hotel and it would be the Canmore Hotel.

“Musically it’s been so important to me and socially it’s an icon in Canmore.”

Not surprisingly it’s a place Reid is happy to check into for an hour here or an afternoon there, considering the chaos and craziness that usually takes place at her abode, where she runs a day home for preschool age kids.

Reid laughs before quickly disputing the fact that there’s need for any such mental escape, noting that sometimes temperance isn’t always the most inspiring thing.

“It’s a really good place to be in my home with really cute, funny kids and music, you know?” she says. “It’s really nice for me. I’ve come to realize I’m a very sensitive soul and it’s a really good place for me to be, I think.”

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